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The influence of psychopathic traits on the acceptance of white-collar crime: do corporate psychopaths cook the books and misuse the news?

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Abstract

Due to several empirical shortcomings in the research of personality characteristics in ethical decision making, we address in this paper the concept of corporate psychopathy in the organizational context. Corporate psychopaths are individuals successfully working in organizations, but are selfish, manipulative, and exhibit a lack of empathy, remorse, and conscience; therefore, they may be viewed as risk factors for organizations. While there is abundant literature on the connection between clinical psychopathy and criminal behavior, such research is scarce in the business context where successful psychopaths operate. Thus, we examine if the malevolent traits of corporate psychopaths predict the acceptance of different forms of white-collar crime. In doing so, we conduct two survey studies in which we first measure participants’ psychopathic tendencies and then assess their acceptance of either an accounting fraud or an insider-trading situation. Consistent with our hypotheses and across both studies, we find a highly significant relationship between personality traits that are associated with corporate psychopathy and the acceptance of white-collar crime. This paper discusses the implications of these findings and identifies some potentially useful approaches for excluding corporate psychopaths from organizations.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Jenna Flogeras for proof-reading the manuscript, Vanessa Fontaine for help during the data-gathering process and Franziska Schmidt for writing assistance. We also thank the editors of the special issue and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions.

The influence of psychopathic traits on the acceptance of white-collar crime: Do corporate psychopaths cook the books and misuse the news?

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  1. Chair of Management Accounting and Management Control Systems, Technical University of Kaiserslautern, P.O. Box 3049, 67653, Kaiserslautern, Germany

    Volker Lingnau, Florian Fuchs & Till E. Dehne-Niemann

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  1. Volker Lingnau
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Correspondence to Till E. Dehne-Niemann.

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Appendix

Appendix

1.1 Vignettes

1.1.1 Vignette study 1

Mister Bender is working as an accountant in a pharmaceutical company where he is solely responsible for preparing the balance sheet. The company promises an annual cash incentive that is linked to the profit of the financial year: “The higher the profit, the higher the bonus!” This fact misleads Mister Bender to distort the results of the current financial year in his favor. Although this is illegal, Mister Bender is not concerned about being discovered due to his ultimate authority over the balance sheets. As a result, his cash incentive increases by a significant amount.

1.1.2 Vignette study 2

Mister Gross is working for a pharmaceutical company listed on the stock exchange. By means of a confidential source, he receives information that within the next few days the share price of the company will most likely increase due to a resounding success of the research and development department. At this time, this notification is not yet available to the general public. For this reason, Mister Gross decides to buy shares, thus making this information profitable for himself, even though this act is illegal. Because of the confidentiality of his source, he is not afraid that someone can prove the use of inside information.

Original vignettes were presented in German.

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Lingnau, V., Fuchs, F. & Dehne-Niemann, T.E. The influence of psychopathic traits on the acceptance of white-collar crime: do corporate psychopaths cook the books and misuse the news?. J Bus Econ 87, 1193–1227 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11573-017-0864-6

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